Stephen: A Soldier of the Cross

by Florence Morse Kingsley

As yet there was little token of day, but the keeper was drowsily undoing the fastenings of the city gate, in due anticipation of the market-men, who would soon be coming from every quarter. Stephen hesitated for an instant, then slipped through the opening without being observed. Before him lay the Roman road, hard and white, stretching dimly away into the darkness. All the young life in him leapt up at the sight.

"I have but to follow this road," he thought, "it will bring me to safety. And why, after all, should I remain? Wicked men have laid a snare for me, and it hath been made known to me in the mercy of God. It must needs be that I escape; I am young, I can and will do good service to them that believe for many years. What shall it profit any man if I perish now?"

He was walking the more swiftly as he communed thus with himself, and hearing, or fancying that he heard, a sound as of pursuit behind him, he thrust his fingers into his ears and ran, the road still dimly unrolling itself out of the darkness before him like a dusky ribbon from the loom of night. After he had gone thus for a long distance--his breath being well-nigh spent and his laboring heart knocking loudly for relief--he paused, and withdrawing his fingers from his ears, listened. There was no sound save the soughing of the wind in the gnarled branches of the trees and the shrilling of insects in the lush grass. He sank down for a moment to rest.

"If I go away now--as indeed those older and wiser than myself have advised--I can remain till the present danger be passed, afterward I can return, and--there is Anat. The world is wide, there is no need that we remain at Jerusalem. We two will go away into far countries and among strange peoples, that we may spread the Gospel among all nations, even as the Master commanded. It is right that this should be, else why do these thoughts come to me. As for means for my journey, I have here in my pouch the money with which I was to buy provisions to-day, this would the apostles gladly give me for my present needs--ay, and more. Yes, I will go--I must go." And he arose and girding himself resolutely, started once more upon his journey.

"I will go," he repeated to himself more than once. "I must go." But after a time he ceased to walk swiftly; at length he stopped altogether and turned his face toward the East. Faint rosy flushes--momently brightening--merged finally into long tremulous beams of pure unearthly light, which shot up as if in an ecstasy of triumph over the conquered gloom. Stephen's heart expanded at the sight. He sank upon his knees.

"'Blessed art thou, O Lord our God, King of the universe,'" he murmured aloud. "'Who createst light and formest darkness, who makest peace and createst all things! He in mercy causes the light to shine upon the earth and the inhabitants thereof, and in goodness renews every day the work of creation. Blessed art thou, the Creator of Light!'"

Something in the familiar and well-loved words spoken in that dewy solitude seemed to sweep away the paralyzing and unworthy fear from out his soul. He looked at the Roman road, showing hard, white and dusty in the morning light, it no longer appeared alluring. He thought again of his resolve to use the money from the almoner's fund to make good his escape, and the honest crimson rose to his cheek.

"I am no better than a thief," he cried aloud. "I will go back; and if it needs be that I suffer, God help me, for the flesh is weak."

As he arose to his feet he saw with a shock of surprise that he had paused near to the little rocky knoll, called, from its strange resemblance to a human skull, Golgotha. Upon the bald summit of this place of death stood a cross, and upon the cross hung the figure of a man--naked save for his scanty rags which fluttered fitfully in the light breeze, the clear light of the dawn revealing with ghastly insistency his drawn features, and the purple wounds in his hands and feet. At the foot of the cross lay two Roman soldiers, evidently detailed to watch the dying man; they were snoring loudly, a half-emptied wine-skin upon the grass between them revealing the manner in which they had beguiled the night watches.

As Stephen gazed at this horrible sight, the figure on the cross writhed feebly, the blue lips parted. "God! daylight again, and I live--live--" were the words which gushed out from them in a quavering shriek.